The art and science of Linen.

Join artists Anna Dumitriu and Alex May in conversation following a showing of the video artwork “The Art and Science of Linen”. This video artwork was created by Anna, Alex, and microbiologist Dr John Paul, with sound by Martin A. Smith. It looks at the whole ecology of linen production from the bacteria used to break down the flax in retting tanks, to the industrial production of linen and its cultural importance. Hear about heritage crafts, such as natural dyeing, and how they link to modern microbiology. Alex will highlight the manual processes filmed in Northern Ireland and the editing, from his background in VJing, which is the creation or manipulation of imagery in real-time through technological mediation.

Artists Anna Dumitriu and Alex May explore science and technology in their work, both individually and collaboratively. They have studied the process of Irish linen production from the microbiology of the retting of flax plants to the complexity of Jacquard weaving, unpacked new gene editing research and synthetic biology to explore infectious diseases, and built life sized humanoid robots to explore the ethical implications of artificial intelligence. Their work has been exhibited internationally at venues including The Picasso Museum Barcelona, Ars Electronica Festival, TATE Modern, The Royal Academy of Art, BOZAR Art Museum, and ZKM. They will discuss their projects, collaborative working practices and why they believe that every lab needs an artist.